Update: Mid-engine Mustang mystery solved!

In case you missed it last week, Ford Performance put the word out that it was having difficulty identifying an old mid-engine Mustang prototype from a series of images dating to 1966. Several ex-Ford employees and experts were stumped, but according to Jalopnik, Ford’s current archivist put the word out to the right people and came through with an answer.

Click above for the full background, but in short, there were several theories going around as to the origin of this unknown mid-engine pony, photographed at Ford’s International Design Center in Dearborn—but none of them really fit.

Ford’s retired Archives manager, Dean Weber, had tried for several years to figure out the story behind the prototype, unfortunately to no avail. If you’re wondering why Ford didn’t look up the images according to the ID numbers and match them up with its internal records, you’re not alone. Unfortunately, some years ago the original inventory was lost in a flood. Of the 350,000 styling negatives still in cold storage (currently inaccessible due to coronavirus quarantine), only 50,000 have been scanned, and the Archives team hasn’t gotten to 1966 yet as it works through the backlog.

Current Archives manager Ted Ryan hit up Jim Farrell, writer of a book on the Ford Design Department, hoping he’d recognize it or at provide a lead. As Jalopnik explains, Farrell responded:

“I’ve sent photos of the car to 13 designers or clay modelers that were at Ford in ’66. Bud Magaldi called and sent the attached 2 photos of the Mach 2. He says the license plate has the name on it. He got to Ford in June 1966. He says the chassis was started in ’66 and it took some time to get everything right. Several years later he sketched the body for the car, and the fiberglass body was built and put on the car. He says he remembers the chassis with the “roll bar” at the back of the doors, the slope of the windshield and the bumpers as Mustang. The photos are from Bud. To his recollection it’s the only mid-engine made at Ford. He also says it was an engineering project.

“Bud Magaldi also remembered the following: Car was done by Larry Shinoda in a small basement studio in secret. Bud helped design it in the evenings. Jerry Morrison was another designer involved, and Bob Huzzard was the studio engineer.”

One of the early theories about the ’66 prototype was that it was later re-skinned as the ’67 Mach 2 concept, but evidently what we’re dealing with here is a related but ultimately separate project. More from Bud Magaldi, via Jim Farrell:

“Bud looked on the internet and found pixs of the ’67 and ’70 Mach II. He says a whole bunch of memories came back to him after seeing the 2 cars. He says the 1967 car was done because Bordinat wanted to market a sports car. The Mach II, or whatever they called it back in ’67, was another bite at the apple by Bordinat, but less expensive. Magaldi and Morrison worked on the first car and it was supposed to be done in secret. Bud says they were not supposed to talk about it. Magaldi says he needed the overtime because he and his wife were expecting a child. He said he liked the proportions of the first car. He thinks the 1970 car done by Shinoda may have been built on a bigger chassis (maybe GT40). He (Bud) often looked in on the Shinoda car because he had done the first one.

“According to Bud, Jerry Morrison was the lead designer on the ’67.”

The revelation that this was a hush-hush engineering project explains why it wasn’t widely recognized, but the Shinoda connection is fascinating, as well. Clearly there were a whole bunch of mid-engine Mustang ideas floating around at Ford in the late 1960s, none of which bore fruit to customers.

Thanks for sending in all of your ideas and posting them to the Hagerty Community! Hopefully we’ll hear back soon from Ford Performance to confirm the theory.